There was very little to suggest on Wednesday afternoon that a World Cup semi-final was lined up 24 hours later at the DY Patil Stadium. Barring the ICC banners, there’s hardly any other feel here of a tournament of such magnitude.

But, hang on. That may not quite be the actual picture.

According to the locals, not many seats will be vacant on Thursday as “a pretty good crowd” is expected when India take on Australia in the second semi-final of this Women’s World Cup.

One hopes the weather doesn’t turn out to be a spoiler. Thursday could be cloudy with a 20 per cent possibility of rain.

Both India and Australia had their training sessions without any interruptions on Wednesday. Despite a hot and humid afternoon, the Indians seemed quite jovial at practice, which most of their frontline bowlers decided to skip.

Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, too, didn’t turn up for training, with only vice-captain Smriti Mandhana, her prospective opening partner Shafali Verma, and Jemimah Rodrigues showing up among the specialist batters.

The three of them certainly had a good hit out there, but the Indian camp has their fingers crossed over keeper-batter Richa Ghosh. Sustaining an index finger injury during the league-phase game against New Zealand, Siliguri girl Richa missed India’s last game against Bangladesh.

Richa took part in Tuesday’s practice session, but was “rested” on Wednesday. It was learnt that Richa herself was confident of playing the semi-final.

“She sounded quite optimistic after practice yesterday (Tuesday). Now, what they (team management) could do is take a call at the team meeting before the toss,” someone close to Richa said.

More than her wicketkeeping, it’s Richa’s power-hitting at the death that matters for India, especially against Australia’s strong, consistent bowling attack.

The seven-time defending champions Australia, on the other hand, are confident of the return of their regular captain and keeper-batter Alyssa Healy, who was recovering from a calf injury.

“She trained well yesterday (Tuesday). I’ll still give Alyssa as much time as she needs to make a call on that (her availability),” Australia head coach Shelley Nitschke said.

India have played the final twice earlier — in 2005 they lost to Australia and in 2017 England emerged champions. Will they get to the final for a third time?